Estate agents playing games?

[Longesthello]

We’ve been house hunting since January, we have a 6 month old baby and it’s really taking its toll. We’re trying to move into a very popular area so I’ve accepted it might take a while. There’s 2 main estate agents who seem to have the properties we like up however one of them seems a bit dodgy.
Most of the properties don’t go up online, they sell them off market, they do all the viewings themselves and I just get the feeling they’re a bit off. We’ve made offers over before but it’s never been enough, they seem to just push up the price, they regularly tell us what we need to offer to secure a house and it’s often way way over what we think it’s worth. I’m not convinced they are even putting our offers forward to the vendors if the agent doesn’t think it’s high enough. He’s told me before they market on an offer overs basis so the marketed price they always expect it to go over.

We have seen a house we absolutely love again off market, over priced but also at the absolute top of our budget. I guess I’m just asking if anyone has any advice on what to do? We can only offer the asking price and not over but I don’t think he’s going to put the offer forward to them.

I don’t think we’re ever going to find a house at this stage, we’ve lost buyers for our house once as we couldn’t find a house quick enough and now we have buyers again, worrying the same thing will happen.

Why don’t you put the offer on email to them. Then you can chase up on email
for confirmation it has been forwarded to the seller (so you have it in writing)

all you can do is keep trying and looking I guess. It’s hard in a popular area to buy if there is not much stock going up for sale

Thanks I have no idea why we didn’t think of that.

Come to think of it the other estate agent always emails us confirmation of offers I don’t know if this is standard practice but we never receive this from the agent that I’ve deemed ‘dodgy’ 😂

Estate agents are obliged to pass on every offer, even the joke ones.

What us your financial situation? Are you a cash buyer? If you need a mortgage do you have an offer in principle? Are you in a chain? Agents will all have a 'hot list', that is half a dozen buyers who will drop everything to do a viewing no matter what the time, who have finances in order, solicitors and surveyors teed up and basically 'good to go'. You need to get on that list. Is this property currently owner occupied?

What do you mean ‘off market’? That they are marketing the houses to people on their lists without promoting on rightmove etc?

I don’t think technically there’s anything wrong with that, I imagine there’s a fee to list on sites like that and if the market is moving quickly and they don’t need that to sell there’s no necessity to.

You can check sold prices online after a few months so you’ll be able to see what houses are actually selling for in the area, I do think if since Jan you’ve not had an offer accepted it’s likely you’re just getting outbid, would you consider looking at a cheaper area within your budget?

If houses are selling then they are not overpriced.

They may go for more than you want to pay, and what you think that they are worth but someone is paying it.

Agree with formally writing the email with the offer, and include your mortgage status etc

But you also need to seriously think about whether you can actually afford what you want and perhaps readjust expectations.

In a busy popular market its completely normal for places never to go on line for example, as there is a list of willing buyers. You also know that this estate does offers over and that vendors will be expecting more than that price. So you need to ignore the offer over price and add say ten percent to see if you can afford it

We’ve never made a ridiculous offer, we offer asking price of above but it never seems enough for what the buyer wants.

We have a mortgage but aren’t borrowing anything additional for the move we fortunately are using cash to top up the difference. We have an offer on our house from cash buyers who have sold their property already so the chain ends with them.

Yes property we have viewed is owner occupied.

We had something similar years ago. I ended up popping a note through the letterbox of the house. The lady called us the following day, and accepted an offer below the asking price 😊

Your own words.

You never offer enough for what the buyer wants.

You need to look at sold prices to work out what things actually sell for, and basically ignore the asking price when it's offers over

Yes I think you’re right there’s obviously people out there with more money than us.
@Dishwashersaurous

We did view a house that we offered £30k over asking, the estate agent said they had a higher offer and we needed to increase it by another £10k, we didn’t do this. This other buyer then disappeared and he hounded us for a week trying to get us to increase. We changed our minds about it (my husband liked it more than me) and agent then got back in touch to say they’d accept our original offer. We declined and then they apparently took it off the market and decided not to sell.
Maybe we are just being a bit naive in all of this and that’s normal.

Yes, it is off that one of the agents isn't acknowledging your offer in writing, and confirming that it has been put forward, and confirming that it has not been accepted. All of those should be happening in a reputable company. It's just a standard email that needs to be sent on both occasions - takes seconds. There's no excuse not to.

I don’t think this is the agent not putting offers in - what would be their motivation for that? It sounds like there are just people paying more. I’ve tried to buy in a market like this and it’s very difficult when you can’t gage how high the price might go. Ultimately you might need to start lower to give yourself more leeway.

Estate agents can be very very dodgy.

1. EA's did not pass on my parent's offer on a house which they found out when they went and knocked on the door. They think this was because EA was pushy about arranging a mortgage through them, but parents were cash buyers so they weren't interested. Sellers were over the moon to have a cash buyer offering the asking price and sale went through.

2. A house for sale in our village was over our budget but then they significantly dropped the price. I rang EA with an offer but was told it had been withdrawn due to a death in the family. Three weeks later the sign was still up so I rang EA again to be told that they didn't know what I was talking about, there was no 'death', the house had been on the market all the time but they had just accepted an offer.

3. When I was going through the process of buying my first house when I was in my early 20s, the (male) EA kept ringing me on virtually a daily basis trying to get me to hurry up and telling me that house prices were going up and the seller may put the house back on the market. Everything was going through as normal, there was nothing I could hurry up but prices were going up. I was in unknown territory and got very stressed. The seller rang me to say EA kept telling her that the prices were going up and she didn't know whether she was being silly taking our offer. I said you had best do that then, but she immediately started back-tracking. I assume she was getting daily calls from him too. My Dad went in to his office and tore off a strip from him and spoke to his boss who apologised. I still don't know what all that was about - did he have a buyer lined up and wanted an increased commision or was he just enjoying making me squirm?

That's my long-winded attempt to tell you not to trust your EA. You could pop round to the house (like my parents did) or pop a note through the door. If you think your offers aren't being passed on, then it has to come from the vendors side.

You just have to remember that the agent works for the vendor, and doesn't have any view about you.

They obviously have a strategy which works for them and their vendors, otherwise no one would go with them.

You just need to adjust to their approach

And in your example, the agent might not think that you are serious about moving.

You offered, and then when someone pulled out your original offer was accepted which is pretty normal, but even though you haven't found somewhere, you didn't proceed because you'd changed your mind about the house.

So from an agent viewpoint you might change your mind about somewhere else after an offer is accepted.

They absolutely should put forward all offers bo matter how low.

But doesn't sound like they have done anything unusual or wrong

I'd pop a note through the sellers' door saying you've made an asking price offer and really like the house. It can't do any harm. Add your contact details.

I've used letting agents and unfortunately not all are professional. I've dealt with an agent who was clearly offering properties to their friends and trying to bring the rents down by not putting forward other offers or viewings.

EAs often do market appraisals, tell the potential vendor if they have a possible buyer who will view before the property is actively marketed. That's how offers are received before the place appears on Rightmove, wherever.

EAs are legally obliged to pass on every offer. They are regulated by an ombudsman. Their job, don't forget, is to get the best price for their vendor. They're on commission after all, so it's in their best interest.

You can report a 'dodgy' EA to the ombudsman.

Thanks everyone , so easy to see it all just from your own side. But will take onboard everyone’s comments and adjust my expectations again.

The situation you describe here is likely one where 3 parties( the sellers and two prospective purchasers ) all changed their minds at different times.

Let’s say the house was offers over 250k. You offered 280 and someone else offered 285.

The agent told you to offer 290 if you wanted the house but you decided not to.

The 285 offer fell through ( or they changed their minds or their chain collapsed or they couldn’t get their mortgage ) .

The agent came back to you and asked you again to offer 290 but again you decided not to.

The client then decided they would take your offer of 280 but you changed your minds and decided to withdraw it.

The client decided not to sell at this time.

From the estate agents point of view, you declined to follow their advice twice when it might have secured you the property.

Then you withdrew you original offer, because you decided that you didn’t like it after all.

The agent may feel that you don’t take advice and are a bit indecisive and flaky. The seller may feel that you were never genuine and were messing them about.

I know you feel you have good reasons for making all your decisions, but maybe so do the other parties involved. I’m not sure they makes anyone else dodgy but you legit.

Im not trying to criticise you, I know you are probably fairly new to buying and selling and it’s a stressful process. But it might help you to see things from other peoples points of view.

I agree they should have emailed you about your offer. But if they are one of the two agents in the area you don’t have much option but to work with them.

I don't trust estate agents. I saw a house go on the market and immediately withdrawn so I went and knocked on the door and made my offer. The elderly lady who owned the house said she hadn't received any offers, she hadn't even shown anyone else around. The estate agent was furious with me because it turns out he wanted it for a mate of his at a reduced price. I am sure they were going to rip off the lady by saying there were no other offers.

@N0TMYIDEA no that makes a lot of dense thank you. I’ve just never really experienced an agent ‘guiding’ you on price before. The other agent we are dealing with aren’t like this at all, they don’t give any indication of anything, which is what we’re used to with estate agents. I think I’m just looking for other reasons we aren’t getting any offers accepted and it’s clearly coming down to price.

On the encouraging side, you are clearly not a million miles off on price. It looks like you could have bought the house you changed your mind about. So actually it might only a very small increase in budget to get the house you want

I think if the houses are primarily selling to people who have made higher bids then they will go with them, lots of agents now do auction type sales.

If you can, watch last night's Location, Location, Location which was about two couples trying to find new homes in popular areas in a difficult market. EAs work for the sellers and want to get as much as possible for the houses they're selling.

I contacted our seller over Facebook to give them the offer because I suspected the estate agents were lying to get bump up the price. I was right. They absolutely do lie.

If the house is owner occupied then you could always put a card through the door confirming your offer, that you're a good buyer and love the house!